India’s ‘Look East’ and ‘Neighborhood First’ Policies: Why Are Relations with Neighbors Crumbling?

Look East Policy:

The "Look East" policy or "Look East" policy of the Republic of India is an effective planning policy for expanding India's economic and strategic foreign relations with the countries of Southeast Asia. One of the goals of this policy is to make India a regional power and to reduce the strategic influence of the People's Republic of China in the international arena. 

India's "Look East" policy was adopted and implemented during the reigns of Prime Ministers P. V. Narasimha Rao (1991-1996) and Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004). After China's invasion of Tibet and the 1962 Sino-Indian War, India and China became two military competitors in East and South Asia. China has developed close military and economic relations with India's neighbor and rival Pakistan, and competes with India for influence over Nepal and Bangladesh.

45 percent of India's foreign trade is with South and East Asian countries. While India's efforts have achieved significant success, India still lags behind China in terms of trade and economic influence in these regions. On the other hand, while it has taken steps to establish good relations with the military government of Myanmar in the country's national interest, the Indian government has faced criticism both at home and abroad for its silence on the government's human rights violations and suppression of democracy.

Neighborhood First Policy

The 'Neighborhood First' policy is a core element of India's foreign policy. It reflects India's priority policy for working with its South Asian neighbors on issues such as peaceful relations, cooperation, defense, security, environment, and climate challenges. It praises India's Look East policy, focusing on Southeast Asia, and its Look West policy, focusing on the Middle East.

Almost ten years ago, when Narendra Modi was taking oath as the Prime Minister of India for the first time, he gave a big surprise by inviting the governments or heads of state of all the neighboring countries to come to Delhi. What an 'invitation' the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif also received. 

The Modi government has always said from the very first day that its neighbors will be the most important part of its foreign policy. This policy has been nicknamed 'Neighborhood First' and the government ministers or policy makers in Delhi. Have repeatedly said that this is the main pillar of Narendra Modi's foreign policy in the last decade!

In other words, India will give more importance to its relations with its neighbors in South Asia (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, etc.) than with those geographically far away from India (be it America or Nigeria) and prioritize their interests - that is the essence of 'Neighborhood First'.

Reasons for the deterioration of India's relations with neighboring countries in recent times:

Narendra Modi had said during the election campaign before becoming the Prime Minister that one of the main elements of his foreign policy would be to put neighbors first for cordial relations and coordinated economic development. The Narendra Modi government incorporated this 'neighborhood first' policy into its foreign policy soon after coming to power.

However, although the neighboring countries were quite happy and enthusiastic about it at first, that enthusiasm has gradually started to wane. Many have started to think that this love for neighbors of India stems more from India's own interests than from a sense of responsibility towards its neighbors. And that is why India's relations with its neighboring countries are deteriorating. Below are the reasons for the deterioration of India's relations with its neighboring countries -

1. Fault at the root:

The Narendra Modi government's 'Neighborhood First' announcement as soon as it came to power was a fault at the root. There was no deep thought behind this announcement. Rather, it was a 'jerk reaction' or a hasty decision. 

For this reason, a few days after inviting all the leaders of the SAARC countries to Modi's oath-taking, we saw that when a business delegation from Pakistan came to Delhi, they were not allowed to meet the Hurriyat leaders of Kashmir. However, the Hurriyat leaders had come to Delhi in advance and were waiting for that meeting.

Now, if the intention was not to allow the Pakistani representatives to meet the Hurriyat leaders, then they should not have been allowed to come to Delhi from Srinagar! Again, if India did not want any talks with Pakistan, then there was no need to invite Nawaz Sharif to take oath. There are several other such examples, from which it is clear that giving importance to the neighboring countries was never the intention of this policy. Simply put, it was not a neighborhood first, in fact, it was an 'India first' policy!

2. Short-term interests:

If we dissect India's recent foreign policy, it will be seen that it has never moved forward with a multi-dimensional policy with the aim of establishing long-term relations with any of its neighbors, be it Maldives, Sri Lanka or Nepal. Short-term interests have always been given priority, and for that, a narrow, suspicious one-dimensional policy has been moved forward. They never cared about what would happen in the long run. And they are also suffering the consequences in one country after another.

3. Hindu Identity Predominance:

The current government of India has wanted to establish their 'Hindu Identity' as a main pillar of foreign policy and that, as usual, has backfired in several Muslim-majority countries like Bangladesh. The main aim of the citizenship law brought by the Narendra Modi government was to portray the Indian state as the last refuge for Hindus. 

Indian leaders and ministers have continuously used the word 'Bangladeshi' as a proxy for illegal Muslim infiltrators within the country, and on the other hand, they have continuously claimed that bilateral relations with Bangladesh have improved greatly. But there is a serious contradiction between these two, which could not be kept under wraps for long.

4. Relations only with the government, ignoring the people:

In the last decade, we have seen in many neighboring countries of India that the government of that country may be very friendly towards India. But the common people of that country are seething with anti-India sentiment. The same thing happened in Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Maldives. But in the name of stability or democracy, India has never tried to 'address' the anger or resentment of the people of those countries, but rather has assumed that their interests will be protected only if the government of that country is on its side.

5. Over-reliance on intelligence reports:

Over-reliance on intelligence or the intelligence apparatus has been a huge weakness of India's recent foreign policy. It is true that intelligence information is needed, but if an attempt is made to judge a neighboring country through the eyes of intelligence and decisions are made on the basis of that, the results are not always positive.

6. Ruling party bypassing the government in implementing foreign policy:

Before the Modi era in India, the ruling party of India was never actively involved in implementing foreign policy. But in recent times, neither in Modi 1.0 nor Modi 2.0, the country's foreign minister has been the RSS leader Ram Madhav, rather he would decide what policy India would take in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar or to some extent in Pakistan. The responsibility of determining India's strategy in so many countries of the neighborhood was left in the hands of that influential leader of the BJP and RSS. It is now being seen that the results of this were not pleasant for India.

7. Regional hegemony:

India wants to establish itself as a regional superpower, but to do so, it will have to fulfill some responsibilities towards its neighbors and develop a 'multi-dimensional' relationship, which has been almost absent in India's recent foreign policy. As a result, the smaller countries of South Asia have considered India as a 'regional hegemon' or regional hegemonic power and the distance between them has increased.

8. Attempt to contain China:

Many believe that India's 'neighborhood First' policy is basically an attempt to contain the influence of China, another superpower in the region. They argue that China has been working to expand its influence in the region for the last few decades. To this end, China is trying to expand its influence in the countries of the region through its intercontinental BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) project. Naturally, the United States, another superpower in the world, does not see this effort of China in a good light. That is why it is trying to stop China through India.

9. Economic capacity:

India is a large regional superpower, which gradually wants to become a global power. India's neighboring countries have a big role to play in fulfilling this goal of India, because it becomes difficult for any country to gain status in the international arena if it does not get recognition and respect from its neighbors in its own geographical region.

Now, a big problem for India is that it does not have 'deep pockets' like China, that is, it does not have the financial strength to invest a large amount in any special project of its neighbors or to make donations. However, almost all of India's neighbors are emerging economies, they have their own hopes and aspirations, and development agendas - to fulfill that, China is also coming forward with a huge wealth of money. 

As a result, no matter how close the neighbors are to India culturally or geographically, many of them are entering China's sphere of influence for the sake of economic needs. Even if India wants to do so in these cases, its ability to do so is actually quite limited.

 

10. Functional and Structural Factors:

There are functional (practical) factors as well as several structural (structural) factors as to why there is discontent against India in various countries. For example, Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country, if any Muslim persecution occurs in India, discontent can grow there. This is a functional factor. Again, due to India's structural contrast in this region, perhaps its neighbors see India as a hegemonic power... or some forces in that country fuel anti-India sentiment for their own interests, this can be called a structural factor.